This background is presented merely to give a brief general orientation. Petroleum refining (or “cracking” or “fractionating”) is a long established and vast field of art encompassing a variety of techniques to treat oil initially recovered from the earth to produce lighter weight hydrocarbons generally more suitable for purposes such as heating oil and gasoline. A drive for innovative techniques in this field is heightened by, for example, expectations of less abundant future availability of more readily refined light, sweet crude petroleum compared to heavier petroleum from the ground and the increasing interest in techniques for facilitating production of readily useful oil from less conventional sources such as tar sands and oil shale.
Another body of materials treatment technology exists using a plasma fired cupola (sometimes referred to as a “plasma gasification reactor” or “PGR”) in pyrolytic processes to derive more useful materials from what otherwise might be waste material. Just a few examples of the practical application of this general technology are briefly described, for example, by Shyam V. Dighe in an article entitled, “Westinghouse Plasma-Fired Processes for Treatment of Industrial Wastes” in Iron and Steel Engineer, January 1992, pp. 44-48, where the plasma cupola technology is discussed in connection with a wide range of materials including, for example, fragmented scrap metal, hazardous waste, shredded computer hardware, and landfill material. Some applications develop useful material, e.g., metals such as iron, and, or independently, vitrify undesirable waste for easier disposition. Additional thermal plasma system processes that have been previously used or proposed include gas reforming such as is described in Industrial Plasma Torch Systems, Westinghouse Plasma Corporation, Descriptive Bulletin 27-501, published in or by 2005. There it is mentioned that virtually any fuel source (gas, oil, coal or others) can be thermally reformed by the intense heat produced by plasma torches.